Mathalgaon, India

Designed by Shefali Balwani and Robet Verrijt and their team at Mumbai-based Studio Brio, BillionBricks Homes / powerHYDE is the world’s first carbon-negative, self-financing home for the homeless. 

Built-in fully robotic factories and created for the 200 million rural homeless in India, powerHYDE ensures that when these homes are built, they do not add negatively to the environment. 

Therefore, the rural homeless do not become a burden for other infrastructure provisions such as electricity, water, and waste.

Each powerHYDE produces four times the amount of energy it needs for itself. 

A community of powerHYDE sells the additional energy to neighboring industries and powers other communal facilities. 

This generates additional income for the inhabitants. A cluster of 75 powerHYDE homes is a mini power plant generating 1 MW of energy.

PowerHYDE’combines through one solution, the enormous demand for housing (40 million rural homes in India); the increasing need for sustainable energy (300%); and a sustainable financial model.

The daunting numbers and lack of financing have paralyzed the construction of homes for the poor. 

PowerHYDE is a self-financing home conceived as a product. It is a product that produces more energy than its own usage thus generating income. 

Since scalability is essential for housing solutions, the house is designed in such a way that it is easy to assemble. 

Additionally, the design is adaptable to different cultural, regional, and climatic conditions.

PowerHYDE is modular. In order to meet the demand of growing families, the structural system of the house allows vertical and/or horizontal expansion. 

Moreover, passive and active sustainability measures meet the needs of fossil-free energy production and zero impact water reuse and circular waste treatment.

PowerHYDE is a cohesive model marrying housing demand and sustainable finance. It allows homes to become passive income generators. 

Through design, construction, and methodology it becomes an active contributor to a family’s income.

A community of 75 homes can jointly generate 1 MW of power. 

This ensures that solving the complicated puzzle of the enormous housing demand does not become a liability but an opportunity towards a sustainable future.

Unlike an average household, each BillionBricks home is designed to be self-sufficient and capable of being totally off-grid. 

It removes itself from the greater system by producing renewable solar energy, harvesting rainwater, managing waste in septic tanks, and supplementing food production with seasonal gardens. 

The benefits of this are exponential when these homes combine to form communities.

In order to optimize construction time and structural quality, 

BillionBricks is developing its own low-cost and hand-held pre-fabrication technology for structural and service systems. 

This will allow pre-fabricated components to be assembled on-site without the use of specialized equipment or heavy machinery.

BillionBricks homes are constructed as a combination of prefabricated and localized elements. 

It’s a unique combination of 30% prefabricated solar roof and structural systems along with 70% localized finishes that allows the home to adapt to various cultures, climates, needs, and contexts making it fit for a global market. 

The design of a BillionBricks home can be broken down into a kit of parts. 

Designed with very few components, the house allows easy construction, maintenance, repair, and disassembly.

PowerHYDE is expandable to allow for future growth and changing needs. 

The system is designed to be applicable for both urban and rural applications.

BillionBricks community is the world’s first self-financing community, that combines housing and clean solar energy into a single investible financial solution. 

It presents an extraordinary opportunity to shape the future of our world, where everyone can be a homeowner while mitigating climate change.

Project: BillionBricks Homes / powerHYDE
Architects: Studio Brio Pvt. Ltd.
Design Team: bB Studio: billionBricks, Architecture BRIO, and fUSE Studio
Client: BillionBricks Homes and the Nabhangan Foundation